World must build united front against North Korea

Heated tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world are simmering closer and closer to the boiling point.

Over the past week, the stakes heightened considerably as the reckless regime of President Kim Jong Un fired an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Japanese island of Hokkiado and then tested its most advanced and destructive hydrogen bomb yet.

In the aftermath, a dizzying hodgepodge of reactions, proposals and strategies for reining in Pyongyang have been heard from all parts of the world.

Among all of them, however, one critical ingredient – global unity and solidarity – sadly has been in short supply.

Consider the mishmash of responses to the North’s latest exhibitions of its destructive ambitions:

In South Korea, the defense minister is suggesting redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that were removed from the nation more than a quarter-century ago. Such a move, however, likely would escalate tensions and ratchet up the possibility of an accidental nuclear exchange that could leave millions dead in its wake.

In the United States, President Donald J. Trump has implored China to take a much larger role in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula by more widely distancing itself economically and politically from North Korea. The president also announced he has given the go-ahead for Japan and South Korea to buy a “substantially increased amount of military equipment” from the United States, a move that on its surface looks to lay the groundwork for war.

In Russia, Vassily Nebenzia, its ambassador to the United Nations, argues that a united front of diplomacy should be the top international priority. He’s calling for movement on a proposal initiated by Russia and China that calls for North Korea to halt its nuclear tests in exchange for the United States and South Korea halting their joint military exercises throughout the region.

Then, from the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley this week has called for unanimous adoption by members of the Security Council of sanctions even tougher than those adopted last month.

“Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to resolve this problem through diplomacy. We have kicked the can down the road long enough. There is no more road left,” she said at an emergency Security Council meeting Monday.

Unfortunately, Russia has already indicated its opposition to such a move. In a statement Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called such sanctions “useless and ineffective.”

DISUNITY INVITES DISASTER

Clearly, this lack of unity invites disaster. It plays right into the hands of the rogue state’s repressive leader and does little but aggravate the crisis and fire up Kin Jong Un’s delusions of nuclear grandeur.

It’s past time for the principle players – North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, the United States – to construct one unified and coherent plan. As it is clearly evident by now, no one nation acting on its own can ever hope to tame Kim and avert the worse-case scenario.

The most logical arena for such unity rests in the United Nations. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that it’s absolutely crucial that the Security Council is united in dealing with North Korea and that the U.S., Russia, China, Japan and South Korea unanimously approve and rigidly enforce one common strategy.

With that in mind, Haley’s proposal for ironclad and loophole-free economic sanctions represents a solid starting point. But for those measures to be more effective than earlier rounds of such punishments, they must not only be harsh but be enforced aggressively.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said a variety of loopholes have allowed rogue nations and some irresponsible companies to openly violate the spirit of the sanctions. The new round of sanctions also must include strict means of monitoring compliance and exposing and punishing forcefully those who dare to violate them.

The longer the peace-loving international community reneges on its responsibility to speak and act as a united front, the more emboldened Kim Jong Un will become and the more his demented nuclear ambitions will have clear passage to reach their potentially cataclysmic ends.

Then, by default, the world would be left with only one viable alternative – the military option. And that option, with its specter of mass destruction and death, must be avoided at all costs.